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I realize that Gwyneth Paltrow is not actually British, but she’s British enough (married to a Brit, raising two half-Brit sprogs, speaking in that often strange, Madonna-esque English).

I bought her cookbook “My Father’s Daughter” last year and every once in a while, I will dip into it and have been rather successful. Her father’s pancake recipe is legendary in our house. I like her best stir-fried chicken recipe and her ten-hour chicken recipe. She’s got some great simple pasta dishes. But there’s one recipe I’ve eyed from the start – her mother Blythe Danner’s blueberry muffin recipe – and I finally made it on Saturday.

It’s a basic muffin recipe. You mix dry ingredients in one bowl. Wet ingredients in another bowl. Mix them together and then fold in the blueberries. It was straightforward, except the results were more like a drop scone batter than a cake batter.

And the final results:

Not very pretty, and not like the photos in the book, but it was as she described. Tart and sweet. It tasted wholesome and even a little nutritious. The kids actually ate around the blueberries (which were the tart component) and the cat wouldn’t leave us alone once the muffins came out of the oven. She didn’t eat them but lingered like she had hoped a piece of muffin might be in her future (as it turned out, I did offer her some and she smelled it longingly but didn’t go for it.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with papers.

Whisk the butter, eggs and milk together in a bowl. In another bowl whisk together the flour, the 3/4 cup of sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold in the blueberries. Divide among the muffin cups and sprinkle the muffins with the remaining teaspoon of sugar. Bake until a toothpick tests clean and the muffins are golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Best to eat these warm.